Impulse-transmitter for electric signaling systems.



V E; E. CLEMENT. IMPULSE TRANSMITTER FOR ELECTRIC SIGNALING SYSTEMS. APPLICATION FILED NOV. 1, 1906.

964,612, Patented July 19; 1910. 4

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"964 612. Patgented July19,1910.

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E. E. CLEMENT.

IMPULSE TRANSMITTER FOR ELECTRIC SIGNALING SYSTEMS.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 1, 1906.

964,612. Patented July 19, 1910. I

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EDWARD E. CLEMENT, OF WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ASSIGNOR TO THE NORTH ELECTRIC COMPANY, OF CLEVELAND. OHIO, A CORPORATION OF OHIO.

, IMPULSE-TRANSMITTER. FOR ELECTRIC SIGNALING SYSTEMS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented July 19, 1910.

Application filed November 1, 1906. Serial No. 341,634.

To all whom it may concern: I V

'Be'it'known that I, EDWARD E. C EMENT, a citizen of the United States, ,residing at Washington, in the District "of Columbia, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Impulse-Transmitters for Electric Signaling Systems, of which the 1 following is a specification, reference being had therein to the accompanying drawing.

My invention relates to impulsetransmitters for electric slgnalmg systems, and especially to those intended to send groups of numbers.

It has for its object the production of such a device which shall be reliable and efficient, economical both in itsfirst cost and subsequent maintenance.

Briefly stated, the invention comprises a pair of contacts intended to be included in an electrical circuit, a wheel or its equivalent having peripheral teeth adapted to work the contactsprings, a motor-for turning the wheel, and a number of setting devices associated with the ivheel to determine the number of impulses'that will be effectively transmitted.

My invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which- Figure 1 isa frontview of the complete machine inclosed in a casing, Fig. 2 is aside' view of thejsame, -Fig'. 3-is' a side view of the mechanism with the casing removed, w

looking in the direction of the arrow in I Fig. 1,'Fig.;4 is a front view? of the parts shown'inlFig-3, Fig. 5 is aside view of .the wheel removed from the other mechanism, Fig.16 is an edge view of. the. same,

' Fig. 7 is "a frontview of the setting devices having the wheel shown inposition between them, and Fig. 8 is a setting devices. Referring to Figs.

side view of oneof the Tend :2, the mechanism is inclosed ina casingA having in its crank with a handle I) for spring of the motor.

The general oper'ationof the device can be understood from Figs.i1 and 2 alone." It will.

' beobserved that each of the slotsa,'a',' etc.,

is provided with'anumbenof notches a".

In practice -I place a-n'u nher gopposi teeach -turbed. By resetting the handles, a new' 'the ends of which are fixed the setting ofthese notches of which there are ten for each of the first four, and four for the last 'notch. With this arrangement it ispossible to send any number from naught-to 9,999 and one additional digit which may be used .60 for any special purpose, and which in the; present case increases the range of selection Jur-foldmaking it possible to transmit any i one of forty thousand difi'erent arrange-1 ments of impulses. Thus, assume that we wish to send the number 564742. The handlea is moved downuntil its stem engagesthe fifth notch in the slot a. The handle a 's' moved down until its stem'engages the sixt notch in' the slot (1. Thehandle a is moved down until its stem enga es the fourth notch in the slot o The hand e a is moved down until its stem engages' the seventhnotch in the slot a The handle a is moved down until its. stem engages the second notch in its slot. a. The crank of the arbor b is then' turned as far as it will go, by means of the handle I), and released. The mechanism inside then makes andv breaks the circuit during one complete rotation of the main wheel, the makes and breaks being ,divided into. five groups with intervalsbetweenthem, as

' follows: 564-7w2.' After the wheel has made one revolution, the handle I) and its crank have again reached their position of rest, and the mechanism stops. The-same number may be sent over agaln by rewindi ing the ,motor spring, and so on indefinitely, as long as the setting handles are undisnumber may be sent, of course. I The mechanism by which the foregoing results a're attained is'ver'y simple, in fact only that shown in Fig. 7. It comprises the wheel W, havin-gthe peripheral teeth and five ridges or short-circuiting flanges. on its faces, cooperating with the setting or short circuiting armsw, 'w,"w' 'w and w, upon handles a, a a, a, d, to'which reference has already been made. The wheel W is fastened to but insulated from the shaft m, which is vjournaled in two side plates, m and m of the casing. This shaft is driven by a spring motor of the type employed in clock works, toys, messenger call boxes, and the like. The: motonconsists of a spring driving arbor I) connected to the main 'sprin b, which drives a train of ears-connected to thes haft m, *t-he motion 0 which is regu- ,110

the handle 6' 3 Fig. 5,

lated 'or retarded by means of the escapement 6 and verge rod and weight. When is turned, the sprin is wound up and when the handle is re eased, the wheels of the motor, together with the shaft 122, will-turn sufficiently to rotate the wheel V completely once. At the end of this rota tion, the. stop mechanism b in the motor maintains all the parts in position. Further description of. the motor is unnecessary, and infact I may state here that the type of motor emplo ed is immaterial and may be varied at wil without departing from my invention at all.

The. essential and characteristic. elements embodying my invention are shown in Fig.

7,'removed from tl1e"'1'est-'oftheapparatus.--

The principle upon which they operate is this: Each of the handles a, (2, etc., corresponds to one of the sets of teeth on the wheel, and each corresponding arm comes into play at the moment that its set of" teeth is passing over the contact spring a. A projection is provided on the wheel for each arm, that is to say radially opposite each set of teeth, and this projection or flange will reach and make contact with the end of the arm after an angular movement determined by the angle through which the arm has previously been movedm setting it. Thus,

if in setting, the arm has been moved forward the space offive teeth, the-n five teeth will pass over the spring 8 before the projection on the wheel. reaches the arm. soon as it does reach thearm, the springs are short-circuited through the frame and although therest of the teeth in that set may continue to pass over the springs, their action thereon is nullified and the circuit maintained closed until the set of teeth and projecting flangehave completely passed, to gether with the interval before the. next set of teeth reaches the spring pen 8.

Referring to Figs. 3 to 7, I have marked the projecting flanges on the wheel as'w, w, 20 w and 'w. Of these,two, 10" and Q0,

are upon oneside of the wheel, and three, "21: 10* and w", are upon the other side. or

face of the wheel. The wheel isv intended to rotate in the direction of the arrow in and it should be .stated here that Fig. 7 is a View from beneath the wheel and arms, or lookingin the direction of the arrow in Fig. 3. The flanges are placed at different radial distances from the center and the ends of the arms 10,10, etc, are bent over at corresponding radial distances, so

i .that each flange, as the wheel turns, will engage-its own arm and no other. Thus, it will be apparent that in'each'rotation of the wheel every arm will be touched once by its flange, and will pass along-the same throughout its length, thus making metallic contact between thearm and; the wheel. For the arm to, this contact is made with its flange .arm w" is shown in in the drawing.

' 'w when'the teeth 109 are passing over the spring 8; for the-arm w, it is made with its'flange 'w when the teeth to are passing over the springs, and so on. As the handles a, a, etc., are moved, they move the other ends of the arms, which are pivoted on a brass sleeve of the shaft m, so that the movement of the ends of the arms is on the same center as that of the wheel.

In Fig. 4, which is the mechanism complete with the casingv removed, the arms w, w, 10 'w and .w are shown upstanding with their handles removed. In Fig. 8 the side view looking in the direction of the arrow in Fig. 7. The arms are pivoted upon a sleeve of the central shaft m and are separated from each other by nuts, to and w, and washers, 20

The spring .9 is connected with the frame through the overlying plate 8 and the screws 8 The spring a on the other handis insulated, and these springs are normally in contact as shown in F 3 so as to complete the electric circuit 1, 2, 3, containing the battery D andthe electromagnet E. I show this circuit with the battery and the electro-- magnet merely for the the invention clear.

My invention is particularly applicable to automatic telephone exchange systems, in which the connections between subscribers lines are made by mechanism at the central purpose of making otlice controlled through impulses sent either from the subscribers or from the operators positions at central.

I contemplate employing the present sending machine inwhat I have called semi-automatic telephone systems of my own design,

in which thereare operators at the central oitice to answer incoming calls from sub-.

and who then set up the scribers lin'es, numbers wanted on these machines, each machine, being started 6' when set, after which the-operator need pay no further attention to the connect-ion thus effected. The impulses from the ma chine in such case go' to the trunk upon which the calling subscriber is connected, and thence to the automatic selectorswitches which are also connected thereto, causing said:

switches to select the line wanted in the usual way. In these systems to which I have referred, the circuit of the sending machine is normally' closed and the-magnet E holds its armature normally attracted as indicated wheel, through the teeth with which it comes in contact, to the flange, to the arm in conby means of its handle Asthe wheel rotates, the

onding to the set of teeth tact with the flange, to the frame, to the screws 8 the "strip 8 the spring 8', and wire 2. The reasons for insulating the wheel will now be perceived. It serves as an intermediate short-circuiting member between the arms, that is to say the frame, and the spring 8. As an example of a number to be transmitted, I suggested 5647-2. The set-- ting of the handle a was ex lained and I will now pointv out how this a ec'ts the arms,

corresponding to ,the handles. The first arm was moved around a distance of fiveteeth,

- the second a distance of six teeth, the third a distance of four teeth, the fourth a distance of seven teeth, and the fifth a distance of two teeth, all from normal or zero osition, which is indicated in Fig. 3. I the box was started. by winding the spring while the arms were in the positions shown in Figs. 3 and 4, no number would be trans mitted at all, because the first tooth would no sooner touch the springs than the flange 7.05 would touch the arm 10. With the arms moved around, however, as I have indicated, five teeth of the set w must pass over the spring 8 before the flange w reaches the arm w; six teeth of the set w must. pass over the spring before the flange w reaches its arm, and soon.

Having thus described my invention specifically, I desire it to be well understood that many changes, may be made in its embodiment and more of application without departing from the essential and 'character istic features.

I intend to use the device either upon the operators desk at the central oflice in con-. nection with trunk lines and signals whereby the operator may control automatic switches, or at a subscribers station where it is particularly valuable because it can be applied to any standard telephone circuit,

requiring only a single connection to the pair of springs s, s, and enabling the subscriber to see at a lance what was the last ments or combinations of impulses to be transmitted.

Having thus described my invention what" I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is: I

1. An impulse transmitter comprising a number wheel and a cobperating impulse device, a contact moving with the wheel throughout its impulse transmitting period,

and a cooperating adjustable contact separate from the wheeladapted to be set so as to maintain operative circuit conditions for any predetermined number of impulses only.

2. An impulse transmitter comprising a motor, a number wheel. driven thereby, a spring contact controlled by the wheel and a short circuiting devicc for the spring contact, said device being adjustable to act when the wheel is at difl'erent points in its rotation, to thereby determine the number of impulses to be transmitted.

3. In an impulse transmitter, a-motor, a number wheel, ,a contact device governed thereby, and a plurality of short-circuiting devices cooperating with the wheel to determine different numbers of impulses to be transmitted.

4:. In an impulse transmitter, a motor, a number wheel having a plurality of groups of teeth separated by plain intervals, a contact device adapted to be operated by said teeth to make and break an electric circuit, and a number of adjustable disabling devices corresponding to the number of groups of teeth, each cooperating with the wheel during the passage of its corresponding group of teeth over the contact device so as to determine the number of impulses to be transmitted from that group.

5. An impulse transmitter comprising a motor, a signal wheel having a plurality of groups of teeth, a circuit controlling device cooperating with said groups of teeth, and a p urality of adjustable short-circuiting de vices, one for'each group, adapted to be set so as to shunt the circuit controlling device after any desired number of teeth inthe group have passed thereover whereby the number of impulses to be transmitted may be determined.

6. In an impulse transmitter, a motor, a number wheel having a plurality of operating segments separated by plain oridle seg ments, a contact device cont-rolled by said operating segments, a projecting flange opposite each segment, said flanges being at different radial distances from the center, a plurality of" contact arms pivoted concentrically with said Wheel each of a proper length'to reach one of the flanges, and means for setting said arms and retainingthem in position when set, the wheel being insulated from the rest of the mechanism except when in contact'with the arms or the contact device, the whole arranged so that each operative segment will transmit a number of impulses determined by the angular distance through which-its corresponding flange must "pass before reaching its arm, and being thereafter short-circuited.

7. In an impulse transmitter, a motor, a

toothed wheel having a plurality of segsegments for'rendering the contact device I 9. A variable si nal impulse transmitter inoperative during the passage of one. or having an impu se ;signal transmitting more teeth.. Y Wheel,'and a plurality of short-circuiting de;

8. A variable signal impulse transmitter vices cooperating therewith.

5 having a transmitting Wheel adapted tosend In testimon whereof I affix my signature 15 w a pre etermined total number of impulses, in presence '0' two witnesses.

' and a short eircuiting device adjustable to EDWARD E; CLEMENT.

engage the wheel in its rotation so as to pre- 1 Witnesses t vent the transmission of any desired num- E. EDMONSTON, 10 her of said impulses. JAMES H. NARR. 

